矮桃 ai tao

Herbs perennial, 40--100 cm tall, with creeping rhizomes. Stems erect, simple, sparsely pubescent or glabrescent, dull red at base. Leaves alternate, subsessile or petiole 2--10 mm; leaf blade narrowly elliptic to broadly lanceolate, 6--16 X 2--5 cm, ± pubescent, sparsely black glandular punctate, base attenuate, apex acuminate. Racemes densely flowered, ca. 6 cm at beginning of anthesis, to 20--40 cm in fruit; rachis densely fulvous pubescent; bracts linear-subulate, slightly longer than pedicels. Pedicel 4--6 mm. Flowers usually secund. Calyx lobes ovate-elliptic, 2.5--3 mm, ciliate, margin membranous, apex rounded. Corolla white; tube ca. 1.5 mm; lobes narrowly oblong, 3.5--4.5 mm, apex obtuse. Stamens included; filaments adnate to corolla tube, free parts ca. 2 mm, glandular; anthers oblong, dorsifixed, ca. 1 mm. Ovary ovoid; style 3--3.5 mm. Capsule subglobose, 2.5--3 mm in diam. Fl. May-Jul. 2n = 24.

Damp woodland margins, wet ravines, grassy mountain slopes; 300--2100 m. Fujian, Guangdong, Guangxi, Guizhou, Hainan, Hubei, Hunan, Jiangsu, Jiangxi, Liaoning, Sichuan, Taiwan, Yunnan, Zhejiang [Japan, Korea, E Russia].